Billy Sure Kid Entrepreneur and the Everything Locator

by Luke Sharpe

  This might actually be a good idea.

  “But if you’re buying a can of pizza already, wouldn’t you just buy a pizza?” Manny asks.

  Or not such a good idea.

  “Okay, I can’t force a good idea to happen,” I admit. “What if I get a jump start on my math homework? I always get distracted when I do my math homework, so maybe my brain will come up with a brilliant idea for an invention while I’m supposed to be working.”

  Manny nods and turns back to his spreadsheets.

  But after an hour staring at my textbook, the only amazing thing that’s happened is that I’ve managed to complete my math homework. No luck with invention ideas!

  “Let me think about it some more tonight,” I say. I always do my best invention brainstorming at night, often while I’m sleeping! I gather up my stuff, place my math homework carefully in my backpack, and head home.

  That night at dinner everyone is in a pretty good mood, which is surprising because my dad cooked. (He might be an okay painter, but he is definitely not a good chef.) Today’s dinner is “eggplant surprise,” so Emily, Mom, and I use plenty of GROSS-TO-GOOD POWDER, an invention that we keep in the saltshaker and makes bad food taste delicious.

  “I’ve been looking at some of the latest Italian fashions,” Mom admits as she dives into some of the surprise. (I think the surprise is a raw onion.) “I can’t wait to shop in those adorable boutiques.”

  That reminds me—Mom loves weird little thrift stores.

  “I think that being in a place so different from home will inspire all kinds of new paintings for me,” says Dad.

  Emily swallows the bite of dinner she was chewing.

  “Dad, your eggplant surprise tastes wonderful, like scarpa.” She has an Italian-English dictionary on her lap.

  “Thanks, honey,” says Dad, “but ‘scarpa’ means ‘shoe.’ ”(Dad studied Italian in college.)

  “Oh. Well, the Italian language is still arancia to me. But I’m studying,” Emily says.

  “Um . . . actually what you just said is that the Italian language is still ‘orange’ to you,” says Dad. “But you keep studying, Em.”

  I smile. Using random, incorrect Italian words in sentences?

  That sounds like Emily’s new thing, all right!

  After dinner I head up to my room.

  “Have an ananas night, Billy,” Emily tells me cheerfully.

  “Thanks, Em,” I say, though it doesn’t stop me from looking up the word “ananas” when I reach my room. It means “pineapple.”

  In so many ways, this is going to be a long two weeks.

  Or now—twelve days!

  Location, Location, Location!

  I’M IN ITALY AGAIN, THIS time wandering the streets. I pass cafés where people sit and munch on cannoli. Some of them share tiramisu.

  I walk around a street corner and I’m suddenly standing in front of the Colosseum of Rome. Only it’s not the Colosseum as it is today—it’s the Colosseum of Ancient Rome! I can hear the sounds of ancient gladiators clashing.

  Just then a man wearing a toga comes up to me and starts speaking in Italian very fast.

  “I’m sorry,” I admit. “I don’t speak Italian! I don’t know what you’re saying! ”

  The man looks at me like I’m not making sense to him, either. He points at me and yells. Then hundreds of other men in togas swarm around me!

  I run down the opposite street fast, desperate to find a way back home. I turn a corner and find myself in an Italian piazza, a wide open square in the middle of Rome. People stroll by, performers sing their best songs, and pigeons flock everywhere.

  I exhale, able to stop for a moment to catch my breath, hoping the men in togas aren’t following me . . . and that’s when the piazza turns into a giant serving of ultra-cheesy lasagna! I sink into the gooey, saucy lasagna. Cheese wraps around my legs. It’s like quicksand.

  Just as the lasagna is about to pull me into its CHEESY LAIR OF DOOM permanently, my alarm goes off, waking me up. It’s time to go to school.

  Whew! Glad it was just a dream, but it proves to me how nervous I am about this move. Worse, I didn’t dream about inventing anything.

  I get ready, and then hurry off to school. My mind is pretty full, between worrying about the move to Italy and trying to come up with an idea for Sure Things, Inc.’s “last hurrah” invention.

  I slip into my seat in math class.

  At the very least I got my homework done, for once. That was one good thing that happened when I was trying to come up with a new invention at the office yesterday.

  When Mr. Kronod, my math teacher, says, “Please pass your homework to the front of the room,” I feel almost relieved. I open my backpack and reach in.

  Come on, where are you? I think as I dig past last week’s science test and my agenda. I reach the end of the stack of papers in my backpack. I thumb through it all again. No homework.

  This is impossible. I know that I put it into my backpack at the office yesterday. I know I didn’t take it out. So where is it?

  One by one, I take everything out of my backpack and line it up on my desk. Out comes an old dog collar I made for Philo when he was a puppy, a half-empty bag of potato chips, three batteries, and a rainbow-colored wig—don’t ask!

  Okay, so I have got to clean out my backpack more often. But that doesn’t matter right now.

  I stare into the now-empty backpack. No math homework.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Sure?” Mr. Kronod asks, watching this all unfold.

  He is the only teacher I have who calls students by their last names.

  Is there a problem, Mr. Sure?

  Can you round that off to three decimal places, Ms. Jenkins?

  Did your parent or guardian sign the permission slip, Ms. Brown?

  “Um, I’m just looking for my homework, Mr. Kronod,” I say.

  I search my jacket pocket, the floor under my desk, and my lunchbox. But no luck. My math homework has gone MISSING.

  I start to reload all the junk back into my pack when Mr. Kronod walks over to my desk.

  “May I have your math homework, Mr. Sure?” he asks.

  “Um,” I say quietly. “I can’t seem to find it.” I gulp. “But I did it. Yes, sir, I absolutely did it. In fact I had it all completed yesterday. But I guess I left it home.”

  “You’re a creative young man, Mr. Sure,” says Mr. Kronod. “Certainly you can come up with a better excuse than that.”

  “But it’s true!” I insist.

  Mr. Kronod makes his way back to his desk.

  “William Sure, unprepared,” he says, marking it in his book.

  I think for just a second about telling him that nobody ever calls me William. And that Billy is just fine. Half the time I forget my real name is William anyway. I mean, it could have been BILLYBADOODLE, right? He doesn’t know that. But I think better of it and remain silent.

  The end of math class doesn’t come soon enough. When it finally does, I’m so flustered that I rush out into the hall, and CRAAAASH!!!! right into poor Clayton Harris! Books, papers, and lunchboxes go flying.

  “Billy!” Clayton says happily, showing no sign of being the least bit bothered by the fact that I just crashed into him and knocked his stuff all over the floor.

  “I’m so sorry, Clayton,” I reply, bending down to help him pick up everything. “I didn’t see you.”

  When the last scrap of paper has been picked up, Clayton starts to tell me about his latest invention. I do have to get to class, but after blowing him off yesterday, not to mention crashing into him, I kind of have to listen.

  “Remember the HOVER BACKPACK?” Clayton asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  Not too long ago Clayton showed me a backpack that he was working on. It was supposed to hover so you wouldn’t have to carry heavy textbooks everywhere. “I think it’s a great idea. How’s it going?”

  “Well, I’ve got the hover feature down pretty well,” Clayton says
. “Watch.”

  He picks up his backpack and presses a small button on the side. Immediately, it starts floating in midair! Then Clayton walks down the hall. The backpack follows him, hovering at arm’s length.

  “That’s really cool!” I say. “I think kids will love it!”

  “Thanks,” he says. “But there’s one feature I’m still having trouble with. Remember the FINDER FEATURE I tried to build in?”

  “Oh yeah,” I reply, recalling this from the first time Clayton showed me his invention. The finder feature finds anything that’s been lost inside the Hover Backpack. “I think kids will love that, too, especially because they won’t have to rummage around for everything they want to find anymore.”

  “Exactly,” Clayton says. “But I still can’t get it to work right. Here, watch.” He raises his voice slightly, staring at the Hover Backpack. “Science book!”

  WHOOOOOOSH!

  Instantly, a large textbook comes shooting out of the backpack and goes soaring up toward the ceiling, followed by all the papers we just picked up off the floor and about half a dozen pens.

  “Cool!” I tell him. Sure, he probably didn’t mean for other items to come out of his backpack at the same time, but his science book did come flying out.

  “I’m sure you’ll fix the bugs!” I say to be encouraging.

  As soon as I say the word “bugs,” I hear a lot of buzzing. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzzz.

  What is going on?

  Suddenly, a few bugs—three flies, two bees, and six mosquitoes—come flying out of Clayton’s backpack!

  “How did those get in there?” Clayton wonders aloud.

  Just as I think the bees are about to wreak havoc on Fillmore Middle School, they ZOOM toward the window and disappear!

  Hmm, I think, feeling a lot like Manny. I could have really used this feature when looking for my math homework earlier.

  “My math homework!” I shout. “This is it!”

  Clayton looks at me like I’ve gone crazy, and maybe I have a little. I always get kinda crazy when a new invention idea pops up. Crazy excited, that is!

  “You know, Clayton, this might be too big for a backpack,” I say, trying to sound a little calmer. “This finder feature should be its own invention.”

  “What do you mean, Billy?” Clayton asks.

  “Imagine an invention that finds not just what’s in your backpack, but anything you’re looking for, and makes it come to you automatically!” I say.

  Clayton’s expression goes from concerned to worried. Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

  “Gee, Billy, that sounds like a PRETTY BIG PROJECT. I don’t know if I can come up with that all by myself.”

  “Well, would you be interested in teaming up with Sure Things, Inc.?” I ask. “This sounds like the perfect Next Big Thing.”

  Clayton’s face brightens. His eyes open wide.

  “Really?” he asks. “You’d really want to make this product?”

  I nod.

  “Wooo-hooo!” Clayton whoops, as if he’s just scored the final points to win the big game for his team.

  As Clayton jumps around doing a happy dance, I smile, remembering that he was shy when he first joined the inventors club. I’m glad he feels comfortable around us.

  “That would be awesome, Billy!” Clayton says.

  “Great! Meet me at World Headquarters after school today,” I say.

  As I head off to my next class, I start to get excited. This really could be the invention I’ve been wanting for Sure Things, Inc.’s last hurrah.

  And then I get kinda sad again, thinking that there actually has to be a last hurrah at all.

  It’s Locating! . . . Or Not

  I RUSH HOME FROM SCHOOL, grab Philo, and start to head out to the office when I pass Emily. She’s sitting at the couch, legs up, perusing the Italian Words for English Speakers dictionary.

  “Have a good day addormentato at the office, Billy,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I reply. “I think.”

  “It means ‘inventing,’ ” Emily says.

  “Actually, unless you are planning on taking a nap, Emily used the wrong word,” Dad calls out from the next room where he is busy packing. “She just wished you a good day asleep!”

  “Whatever!” Emily says.

  A short while later Philo and I arrive at World Headquarters of Sure Things, Inc. Manny is there as usual.

  “So, I invited Clayton Harris to come by this afternoon. He’s been working on an invention I think you should see,” I say.

  “How’s he doing with the inventors club, anyway?” Manny asks.

  “Really great,” I say. “I’m happy for him.”

  “And how about you?” Manny asks. “Are you doing okay with all this Italy stuff?”

  Hmm. I realize now that’s the first time anyone’s asked how I’m doing with this. And I don’t know. I’m upset? Nervous? In denial?

  But before I can answer, there’s a KNOCK on the door.

  “Come on in!” I shout.

  The door swings open and in walks Clayton, followed by the Hover Backpack, which floats along behind him. As he steps into the office, his eyes open wide and a big smile spreads across his face. He’s been here before, but that was for my birthday. Everything was decorated and neatly put away then. Now Clayton gets to experience the office in all of its messy glory!

  To Clayton, coming here is like going to the world’s best amusement park.

  “This place is so awesome!” Clayton says, looking all around. “You’ve got—a foosball table! And a pizza machine! And look at that workbench!”

  Philo hops out of his doggy bed and trots over. He sniffs Clayton’s shoes.

  “He doesn’t bite, does he?” Clayton asks nervously.

  “Not unless you’ve invented something that turns you into a giant bowl of sausages!” Manny jokes.

  Clayton laughs and scratches Philo’s head. Then Philo returns to his bed and curls up for his afternoon nap.

  “So this is where the magic happens?” Clayton says. “Where the All Ball was invented? Not to mention the REALLY GREAT HOVERCRAFT. Wow!”

  And then I start to get nostalgic, thinking about all the fun and wacky times Manny and I have had here, all the cool inventions that came out of this little garage, and how all of that is about to come to an end.

  Why does Tali DeCiso have to live in Italy, of all places?

  “Nice backpack, Clayton,” Manny says, snapping me back to the present. “How does the hover mechanism work?”

  “Interestingly enough, I combined a few secrets ingredients with year-old peanut butter, mint toothpaste, and a little of the grease from the floor of my dad’s garage,” Clayton explains. “When I applied it to the backpack at just the right moment, it switched on the anti-gravity factor.”

  “Interesting,” Manny replies. Then he turns to me. “You know, Billy, I thought it might be fun to go back to the first invention idea we ever had,” he says. “Remember the day you told me about the CANDY TOOTHBRUSH?”

  Wow! I haven’t thought about the Candy Toothbrush for a long time.

  I fill Clayton in on the details. “When I was little I really hated brushing my teeth, so I came up with an idea to invent a toothbrush that made any toothpaste taste like candy. I never got to work on it, though.”

  “Well, what about that one?” Manny asks. “The first invention idea as a last hurrah—the marketing kind of writes itself!”

  “Actually, Clayton here has come up with a great idea that just needs some tweaking,” I explain. “That’s why I asked him to come here.”

  Manny looks over at the Hover Backpack.

  “This is Clayton’s Hover Backpack,” I explain. “Not only does it hover, but it has a built-in finder feature to help you find whatever you are looking for without having to dig through everything inside.”

  Manny eyes it closely and then sighs.

  “Well, we sold the rights to our hovercraft to the Really Great Movies stud
io,” he explains. “So I don’t think Sure Things, Inc. can release any product that hovers. I think we’d be on shaky legal ground with that one.”

  Clayton’s expression changes immediately. Oh no. I hope I didn’t tell him to come here just to leave disappointed.

  “I do, however, think you might be onto something with the finder feature, Clayton,” says Manny.

  Clayton’s whole face brightens up.

  “What if we focus on that and expand it a bit?” Manny suggests. “If we can design it right, this invention should be able to find anything, anywhere, and make it come to you automatically.”

  “No more lost homework,” I say, thinking about the possibilities.

  “Or lost gummy bears,” Clayton adds.

  The possibilities are ENDLESS!

  “Do you think we could do that, Billy?” Clayton asks. He seems a little nervous, like he’s not quite sure.

  “Hey, with you and me working together, why not?” I say.

  The big smile returns to Clayton’s face.

  “I even have a name for it,” says Manny.

  Of course he does!

  “The EVERYTHING LOCATOR!” Manny announces proudly. “Simple, easy to remember, and right to the point.”

  “I like it!” says Clayton. “It’s a great name!”

  “Manny is terrific at marketing,” I say. “He’ll come up with the name, the marketing plan, the sales strategy. Now, of course, all we have to do is make it perfect.”

  “So sometimes you guys come up with names for inventions before they’re even finished?” Clayton asks.

  “Are you kidding?” I say. “There have been times when Manny has come up with a whole marketing plan before I even have a working prototype!”

  All three of us laugh. I think bringing Clayton into Sure Things, Inc. is going to be fun. At the same time, though, it’s another reminder of how everything is about to change.

  But I know what I need now. Nothing makes me feel better faster than working on a new invention. So . . .

  “Let’s get busy, Clayton!” I say, leading him over to my workbench. I pull over a second stool so we can sit and work side by side.

  “All right!” Clayton shouts. “HOW DO WE START?”